I get what you say and well said it is too.

I do believe, however, that without the foreign care workers, waiters, pub staff, labourers, fruit and veg pickers - and there must be many hundreds of thousands of them from the EU here- we will struggle to maintain our standards of living. Add the potential of lost jobs from the extra costs of trading and one or two other negatives of Brexit already mentioned it feels like the 'Out' campaign is very much using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I don't see those workers being allowed into the country if we had a points based system or if they were red-tape would rear its ugly and expensive head.

Cameron and around 75% of the cabinet think it is wiser to stay. The others want to risk what we already have and roll the dice with fingers crossed hoping it comes up a '7'.

It's certainly going to be interesting to watch this play out.

The CBI and Big Business telling us all how we have to stay in to protect profits by continuing to race to the bottom on wages (OK, maybe they won't tell the whole truth) and the Little Englanders on the other telling us how we'll be able to lock the migrants out and send all the benefit claimants from Eastern Europe back (without telling us how they propose to repatriate or take money away from those already here).

The anti-Establishment flame in me wants to vote OUT for the sheer F*** offness of it, but I can't bring myself to line up with exploitative hypocritical scum like Farage on principle.

Quite a bit, as we saw with Scottish Independence - in the run up to the referendum. Fear, nonsense and hyperbole will be bouncing around for the next four or five months, with both sides feeding on the paranoia, and ultimately, it'll result in zero change. Even if we do go 'out', in likelihood the actual reality will be minimal change, a few cosmetic gestures and business as usual.

I'm leaning more towards an out than an in. Whilst there are elements of the EU and membership that appeal to me, the EU exists primarily as a means of exerting Corporate pressure on other countries, including member states (things like TTIP, Tax sheltering, EU trade regulations and Freedom of Movement seriously concern me as they represent unaccountable interests).

Or alternatively, make being feckless a lot harder by reducing benefits and improving education and training.
Allowing vast numbers of migrants here is not the answer. Unless the question is, do you want to make rich people richer.

Sterling dropping like a stone already on 'out' fears.

We will have only 24 months to negotiate an exit if the 'out' vote wins when at that point we will cease to be a member state and any unfinished negotiations will automatically be terminated.

I'm not sure the problem would be helped by reducing benefits, but raising the minimum wage significantly would make some of these jobs more viable for those who are unemployed and in a position where they can't afford to take a job. Problem has been that whilst benefits are linked to inflation, wages aren't. Meaning that the influx of migrant workers has essentially made x number of jobs unworkable for many people who have ties here (such as those who have a family).

Where I live, the big contributor to welfare cost is housing benefit, because the cost of renting is through the room expensive. There is no real way someone on minimum wage could afford to rent a one bedroom flat each month, let alone a family home (easily going to set you back 1k a month after tax). Even with two working adults that's still a serious amount of money to find each month, before you get to bills and utilities.

Why baffling? If we go backwards economically it is going to affect a lot of people. The 'outs' may not care about that that much as long as their vote wins but others do. Living in the past is going to help no-one. Reforming EU rules that aren't functioning well will. And we can't make that come about if we are trading from a lonely stall 25miles away from where the real action is.

Why baffling? If we go backwards economically it is going to affect a lot of people. The 'outs' may not care about that that much as long as their vote wins but others do. Living in the past is going to help no-one. Reforming EU rules that aren't functioning well will. And we can't make that come about if we are trading from a lonely stall 25miles away from where the real action is.

Why baffling? If we go backwards economically it is going to affect a lot of people. The 'outs' may not care about that that much as long as their vote wins but others do. Living in the past is going to help no-one. Reforming EU rules that aren't functioning well will. And we can't make that come about if we are trading from a lonely stall 25miles away from where the real action is.